The Original Because of Love

I was thinking today about how I really have a great life. There isn't much to complain about. I have a wonderful husband, who I love with my whole heart. I have a beautiful child, inside and out. I come from a great family! They have always been loving and supportive. I have an awesome church, that has lead me to a deeper relationship with the Lord, and has also brought wonderful friends into my life. I have a nice house, food in my fridge, a closet full of clothes, and money in my bank account. I really have been so blessed. When I look at the world around me, I realize that I can stress about silly things sometimes. Sure, I wish that I could lose some weight. I would love to buy more clothes. There are some changes that I would like to make in my house, and everyone always wants more money for their bank account, but all in all, I am pretty lucky!

Here is a blog that ya'll should check out. This is a blog by the Buck family. Whenever I read it, I am reminded of how blessed I truly am. Over the last couple of years, their family has had a very rough time. This past January, Josh (the husband/father of the family) had a terrible accident. I know Josh Buck from middle school. We also went to the same college, Indiana Wesleyan. He is a great guy. He has an awesome personality and has a great musical talent. Here is his story: (copied from their blog)

The whole story actually begins almost 2 years ago on August 1st of 2005. The day we lost our daughter Ava. She was sleeping in her bedroom on the second floor when the box fan, meant to cool her room, fell out of the window and into her crib. It pinned her face into the mattress and suffocated her. I never heard a thing on the baby monitor. Around 1 p.m. I went upstairs to wake her up and found her under the fan. I performed CPR for 7 minutes before the paramedics arrived and continued to try and revive her. After 45 minutes, they pronounced our little girl dead. Josh was not home. He found out on the phone on his way home to meet us. We got to hold her before they brought her to the funeral home and say goodbye together. It was horrible but wonderful to see our little girl one last time. We buried her in Allendale, under a beautiful tree where the breeze always seems to blow.

After much thought and prayer, we decided to try and have another baby. We found out in October we were expecting and we were soooo excited. This led to us deciding to have one last vacation before the baby arrived. Enter Cancun.

We arrived in Cancun on January 18. Our rooms were not ready when we arrived so we threw our bags into a room and headed to the beach. We laid around on the beach for about 20-30 minutes before the boys got restless and decided to go for a walk down the beach. After only walking a few hundred feet, they decided to go into the water. The waves were huge and there was a big drop off into the deeper water very quickly. Josh stood in the water, just above his knees, where the waves were crashing. He dove into one of the massive waves, a surface dive, and was turned upside down where his head hit the bottom. He was immediately paralyzed. He was not knocked out and knew immediately something was very wrong. He tried to get up to the surface of the water to breathe but was unable. Brad (our friend, along with his wife Sarah, who were vacationing with us) thought he was joking. After watching for a few seconds realized something was really wrong. He arrived to Josh at the same time as the lifeguard. They very carefully removed his body from the water. By this time he was unconscious and had swallowed lots of salt water. While getting him on the beach, he started coughing up the water and came to on his own. A crowd gathered around him and this is what Sarah noticed. We got up to check out the commotion and I realized it was Josh. From the looks of his face, his color and the way his legs moved as the waves hit his legs on the shore, I was convinced something was very wrong. The paramedics came and brought us to a hospital in Cancun. While in the ambulance, Josh said over and over, "Get me out of here. Get me out of here." He was meaning out of Mexico and back to the U.S. We arrived at the hospital and his oxygen saturation levels were very low, even with oxygen. This is because of all the water in his lungs and losing the muscles in his abdomen and around his lungs to breathe. His diaphragm was doing all the work to breathe. They immediately put in a breathing tube and took X-Rays and a CT scan. It was obvious that he has broken his C5 vertebrae into 3 pieces. After deciding it was not compressing on his spinal cord, they said we could fly. We took a med flight on a Lear jet to Miami, about 12 hours after the accident. We arrived in Miami, my parents meeting us at the entrance to the ER (they were vacationing only about 45 minutes from Miami) Josh in a drug-induced coma. After a crazy day of everyone from home arriving in Miami, we found out that the bones were compressing his spinal cord and he needed emergency surgery. The surgery went well. After he got out of the surgery was the first time I could breathe and feel like he might survive. All of the doctors kept talking about "life-threatening" infections. Many of the doctors were amazed he had survived in the water and survived on his way to the hospital, now he had to beat the infections that would present themselves because of swallowing all the sandy salt-water. Those infections never arrived. God saved Josh for a purpose. After 2 weeks in Miami, we took another med flight into Grand Rapids (I have never been happier to be home in all my life!) and went straight to Mary Free Bed Rehab Hospital. Josh spent almost 3 months there. You know the rest of the story, at least as far as it has been played out. We have now moved to a new home on the west side of Grand Rapids. God continues to protect our family. Seven weeks ago, a little boy named Ephram joined our family. He has brought us great joy, but will never be a replacement for Ava. We continue down this road, wondering where God will lead us and what he will be doing next...

I know that you probably just read that and thought, why did she put that sad story on there, but I want to encourage you all today with this post. Every time I read the Buck's blog I thank God for all the things that I do have. So much of my day could be spent on worrying about things, but in reality, I don't have anything to really worry about. God has taken care of me for 26 years, and this is just the beginning. I know that He has great plans for me, my family, the Buck family, and for you too!